Description:The Minute Book of the Bank Committee for 1817 states that Trentham Savings Bank was established as a result of the Marquis of Stafford’s ‘benevolent intentions’. The minutes state that the Bank was established:
‘for the safe custody and increase of small savings belonging to the industrious classes’.
Indeed, the motivation behind the formation of Trentham Savings Bank appears to have been based on encouraging people to save for the future, thereby acquiring ‘sober and industrious habits’.
Trentham Savings Bank was governed by an extensive set of rules which were repeatedly revised throughout the Bank’s existence. The rules were revised by the Bank’s Committee and many of the revisions concerned rates of interest and Acts of Parliament.
When the bank opened in 1817 depositors could pay in up to £100 in their first year of saving and up to £50 in any subsequent years. However, this was revised in January 1825 to £50 in the first year and £30 after that.
Friendly Societies using the bank could ‘subscribe the whole or any part of their funds’.
The minimum amount which a person could deposit was one shilling. However, the Minute Book for 1817-1865 states that ‘no Deposits shall be entitled to interest till they amount to twelve shillings and sixpence’.
The Bank’s Committee met at Trentham ‘every Saturday fortnight for the dispatch of business’.
The Bank was open ‘the second and fourth Saturday in every Month, at Trentham, from Two to Four o’Clock in the Afternoon’.
If a depositor died leaving less than £20 in the Bank and no legal claim was made within six months, the rules stated that ‘the Committee may dispose of it among his or her relations in the way which they think most equitable’. If the money remaining in an account exceeded £50 ‘the Probate of the Will or Letters of administration’ were required to prove that a person was entitled to that money.
When disputes occurred between depositors and staff at the Bank, particularly incidents involving the accounts of deceased depositors, they were referred to the ‘Magistrate acting for the Hundred of Pirehill North’.
A depositor could withdraw money from the Savings Bank. If the sum being withdrawn was £5 or less it could be withdrawn ‘without giving previous notice’. If the amount was more than £5 but less than £20, fourteen days notice was required.
When the bank first opened in 1817, interest amounting to £4 yearly was paid to depositors for every £100 deposited. The Government interest rate was £4, 11 shillings and three pence at this time. The bank kept the eleven shillings and three pence for ‘a fund for defraying the necessary expenses of the Institution’.
The rules of the Bank were kept by the Bank’s Clerk and open for depositors to view at every Committee Meeting. A parchment copy of the rules was given to the ‘Clerk of the Peace for the County’ and copies of any alterations to the rules were ‘affixed to the Door of the Parish Church of Trentham for the two Sundays next after their being in force’.
Click on the images on the left to learn more about the rules of Trentham Savings Bank in 1817.